Soul Kissed Read Free

the incredible pull that I felt toward him as I fought to gather the strength to move.  I just needed to move away. It shouldn’t be so hard.
    But as I willed my feet to move, Brennan reached out his fingers and touched mine, fingertips to fingertips. 
    Sensations I’d never felt before, as soft as velvet but as strong as steel, flooded through my body, filling every vein, lifting me like I was floating on the swelling waves of the ocean.  It was exquisite, unique and petrifying.
    “What the hell?” Brennan murmured, his eyes still frozen to mine.  His voice was quiet and raspy and filled with wonder, but it was enough to break my fixation on him and I yanked away, lunging out of the elevator.
    “Wait!” he called to me, his urgency bleeding through his voice.
    But I was already running down the hall. I had to get away from him.  Far, far away before I hurt him.  Curious nurses moved out of my way as I ran and I didn’t look back even though Brennan was still calling my name.
    I took the nearest exit, throwing the door open so hard that it slammed into the cinderblocks behind it and I flew down the stairs with the speed of the gods.
    What the hell was that? I had never felt that way before in my life. 
    Typically, when I fed, I started the process at my will.  It was a conscious effort, something that I could easily control.  My self-restraint was never tested.  It was just like kissing.  I simply brushed my lips against theirs and sucked their souls right out of their bodies.  It was quick and painless.
    But with Brennan… I certainly had no intentions of stealing his soul, yet his aura had appeared with just my touch.  He was young and vibrant and alive and I wanted him. I wanted him like I had never wanted anything else in my life.  My need for him had filled me up, distracted me, overwhelmed me.  I had never felt a connection like that before. 
    It was startling. 
    Amazing.
    Terrifying.
    Because it was incredible.  Emotion had flooded my body, pulsing through my heart… waking it from an ever-long slumber.   And because of that, I could never see him again.  My curse made me dangerous. 
    I killed everyone that loved me.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    The icy waves crashed against the shore of Lake Michigan, then receded back into the lake only to rear their liquid heads to crash again.  The silvery light of the moon shone onto the surface, refracting against the rippling sheen like shattered black glass. 
    I sat on the top of a nearby bluff, inhaling the crisp night air and allowing it to rustle my hair from my shoulders, raising goose bumps along my bare arms.  I always felt the best at night because the moon energized me.  I literally felt stronger as the moonbeams caressed my skin.
    There was a good reason for that.  My mother, Hecate, was not only the goddess of witchcraft.  She was also the goddess of the moon.  Everything magical, dark or lunar-based fell within her realm. And by extension, my own.   
    “What are you doing out here?” a quiet voice asked from behind me.  I sighed, knowing who it was before I even turned around.  Ghosts fell within my mother’s realm, also.  And because of that, I could see them.  Turning, I gazed at my friend Gaia, who just so happened to be one.
    “I’m soaking in moonbeams,” I answered.  “What are you doing out here?”
    Gaia’s brown hair was coiled at her neck and she was wearing an elaborate ancient Roman dress because that is when she last lived.  Not being able to change her clothes for the past couple of thousand years truly vexed her but she refused to cross over to the Underworld.  She was terrified of the unknown.  She was proving herself invaluable to me now though, as I tried to outrun my father. 
    “I’m just checking on you,” she muttered as she perched on her heels next to me.  “Why you like to sit out here in the sand, I’ll never know.”
    “Why you hover above it like you’re trying not to